Detection of paternally inherited fetal point mutations for β-thalassemia in maternal plasma using simple fetal DNA enrichment protocol with or without whole genome amplification: an accuracy assessment

Abstract

Objective: To design and evaluate a noninvasive protocol for prenatal diagnosis (PND) of β-thalassemia, using cell free fetal DNA (cff-DNA) in maternal circulation. Traditional current PND which is mainly based on chorionic villous sampling (CVS), amplification refractory mutation system and sequencing holds as gold standard.

Methods: Ten thalassemia trait couples with distinct mutations for the husband and wife were included in this study. The mutations in carrier fathers were IVSI-1, IVSI-5, FR8/9 and CD44. After maternal plasma isolation and free DNA extraction, all samples subjected to designed protocol including DNA size separation on agarose gel, elution of DNA from the gel slices using a simple and efficient manual purification method, with or without whole genome amplification and the detection method was allele-specific real-time PCR.

Results: Presence or absence of the paternal mutant allele was correctly determined in all of cases and the accuracy of designed protocol was determined 100%.

Conclusions: The protocol described here is very simple, inexpensive and easy to perform, but with satisfactory accuracy in detection of paternal mutations in cff-DNA. Due to the risk of fetal loss with current invasive sampling for PND, a noninvasive alternative is highly demanded in clinical setting.

• β-thalassemia
• allele specific PCR
• free DNA
• prenatal diagnosis
• real-time polymerase chain reaction

Acknowledgements

The authors thank all couples who generously participated in this study.

Declaration of interest

The authors report no declarations of interest. This work was financially supported by Isfahan University of Medical Sciences, Isfahan, Iran through grant number 392226. The authors acknowledge financial support of Vice Chancellor for Research, Isfahan University of Medical Sciences, Isfahan, Iran.